saturnalia

plural saturnalias · alternative Saturnalia

1. A period or occasion of general license, in which the passions or vices have riotous indulgence; a period of unrestrained revelry.

   We advanced into the main hall, already aroar with a saturnalia of sozzled gestures and gibbering.

   2001, Chip Kidd, The Cheese Monkeys

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   a man who mounts the Hustings, must not allow himself to be sore-boned, or he invites his opponents to 'touch him on the raw,' not in the exercise of their malice, but their power; an election is a saturnalia."

   1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LXX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 260

   They lodged men and women on the same floor; and with the night there began a saturnalia of debauchery—scenes such as never before had been witnessed in America.

   1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter XXVI, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC

   If at the birth of the Latin kings their fathers were really unknown, the fact points either to a general looseness of life in the royal family or to a special relaxation of moral rules on certain occasions, when men and women reverted for a season to the licence of an earlier age. Such Saturnalias are not uncommon at some stages of social evolution.

   1922, James Frazer, chapter 14, in The Golden Bough

   Yet if he remained, it would simply mean that his own and Hagthorpe's crews would join in the saturnalia and increase the hideousness of events now inevitable.

   1922, Rafael Sabatini, chapter XXVIII, in Captain Blood: His Odyssy

   It was a raw, violent, guzzling saturnalia that spilled obstreperously through the woods to the officers' club and spread up into the hills toward the hospital and the antiaircraft-gun emplacements.

   1961, Joseph Heller, chapter 34, in Catch-22

plural Saturnalias

1. historicalAn Ancient Roman holiday honoring the deity Saturn.

   Its pages contain not just recipes but an idyll of prelapsarian plenty, passed down the generations by those who still connect with pagan forces: Saturnus and his groaning table, a Saturnalia from the Golden Age.

   2012 September 21, Justine Jordan, “John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk – review”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Dec 2013

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   Saturn was an ancient Italian deity. It was attempted to identify him with the Grecian god Cronos, and fabled that after his dethronement by Jupiter he fled to Italy, where he reigned during what was called the Golden Age. In memory of his beneficent dominion, the feast of Saturnalia was held every year in the winter season.

   1913, Thomas Bulfinch, chapter 1, in The Age of Fable

   CATULLUS described the Saturnalia as “the merriest festival of the year,” and Seneca [the Younger] reported that “all Rome seemed to go mad on this holiday.” The Saturnalia, named for Saturnus, an ancient agricultural deity, began on Dec. 17.

   1978 December 13, Lorna J. Sass, “Saturnalia: A Feast Fit for a Roman God”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Jan 2021

   The Church co-opted these and other pagan festivals and concepts: the Roman Lupercalia and the feast of the purification of Isis became the Feast of the Nativity; the Saturnalia were replaced by Christmas celebrations; Mithra (the Persian sun god) was born in a cave, of a virgin, on Dec. 25.

   1998 November 11, Baruch E. Kahana, “The Church Co-Opted Some Pagan Concepts”, in The Wall Street Journal, New York, N.Y.: Dow Jones & Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Jun 2024

   Inspired by the Roman Saturnalias, the Philadelphia Mummers New Year’s Day Parade, below, will teem with 15,000 mummers – elaborately costumed members of local New Year’s clubs – competing in four divisions.

   2005 November 27, J. R. Romanko, “Datebook”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 May 2015

   The sculpture sits about 20 feet from a traditional Nativity scene of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, and is backed by a banner from an atheist group reading “Keep Saturn in Saturnalias,” a reference to the belief that the early Christian church substituted Christmas for a Roman pagan holiday.

   2016 December 21, Associated Press, “Vandals repeatedly attack pentagram erected near Nativity scene”, in New York Post, New York, N.Y.: News Corp, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Dec 2016

   Synonyms: Saturnalians, Saturnals

plural Saturnalias

1. Alternative letter-case form of saturnalia.

   For New York Times photographers, it has been a night to leave their families in order to document the Saturnalia of Times Square.

   2015 December 25, John Leland, “New Years Eve, Times Square, Through the Years”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Dec 2015

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   It was odd that the literary festival should be turned into a Donnybrook fair, but so it was when I was a boy, and the tents and the shows and the crowds on the Common were to the promiscuous many the essential parts of the great occasion. They had been so for generations, and it was only gradually that the Cambridge Saturnalia were replaced by the decencies and solemnities of the present sober anniversary.

   1890 October, Oliver Wendell Holmes [Sr.], “Over the Teacups”, in The Atlantic Monthly, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 30 Mar 2023

   G N’ R, as they are colloquially known, were an affront to the ears and nostrils of civilised society, a Saturnalia in the flesh and in the speakers.

   2016 January 13, David Bennun, “Guns N’ Roses’ big-money reunion”, in The Economist, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Oct 2020